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Plague of Babies
"Plague of Babies" is the 1st segment in the 10th episode of the first season of Invader Zim. It first premiered on September 7, 2001, on Nickelodeon. Plot Summary When Zim's Voot Cruiser has a mechanical failure, and sends Zim and GIR flying through the sky, Zim manages to gain control just in time to land safely in their headquarters. However, Zim is horrified as he learns that a human baby has seen the whole thing; despite GIR's attempts to reason with him, Zim decides to go meet with the baby to see if he can force any information out of him. Posing as a "baby inspector," Zim attempts to question the baby, whose name is Noogums. Zim gets nothing out of the interview, and is quickly deterred by the overpowering stench that Noogums apparently produces. Back at his base, Zim contemplates the size of the threat a human baby imposes, but his thoughts are interrupted by GIR, who is playing with a power amplifier, and sending out so many deadly waves of stupidity, it briefly kills Zim, and forces his PAK to reactivate him. Zim is in the middle of chastising GIR, when the doorbell rings. However, when Zim answers, no one is there. He turns around, only to find himself surrounded by babies, led by Noogums. After knocking Zim out and tying him up, the babies reveal themselves to actually be members of an alien race called the Nhar-Gh'ok, and Noogums is really Space Sergeant Shnooky. Their race just happens to look identical to human babies, and the reason Shnooky and his team was still on Earth was not by choice. Seven years before, they were sent to Earth to gather information, mistaking the newborns they found in a hospital as members of their own race, being held captive. Shnooky's team liberated the infants, but when they were discovered by hospital workers, the Nhar-Gh'ok were forced to take the places of the babies they "freed". They have been stuck on Earth ever since. Shnooky declares he wishes to steal Zim's ship so they can return to their home planet. Zim refuses to give up his Voot, and frees himself from his restraints. He makes it to the repair bay where his ship is being held before the Nhar-Gh'ok, but, using acid from their mouths, they are able to break in. For resisting them, the babies morph into the Giganto-Baby, and start destroying Zim's base before taking his ship, so that he will be stuck on Earth just like they were. Zim sees GIR still playing with the amplifier, which gives him an idea. He turns the power up to maximum and aims GIR at Giganto-Baby. This causes the Nhar-Gh'ok to resort back to their normal forms, and incapacitates them. Zim launches the babies back to their homes and the Nhar-Gh'ok are still stuck on Earth forever. Facts of Doom Cultural References *The plot of this episode is similar to the movie The Village of the Damned, which was also about children being replaced by abnormal beings. *Shnooky, the leader of the babies, resembles Tommy Pickles from Nickelodeon's hit series Rugrats. *The design of Giganto-Baby appears to be a reference to the Cain cyborg from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_2 Robocop 2], complete with a digital "face" to communicate with others. Trivia *Rob Hummel who wrote this episode has an actual problem with babies as he finds them disturbing, especially when they breathe so heavily. *Bloody GIR can been seen at the voot cruiser sequence during the episode's opening. *This is one of the few episodes that Dib doesn't appear in but he is mentioned, by GIR no less. *The helmet that Zim wears to look at the baby through the window is similar to the ones that were put on the heads of the people for them to see the terrible visions in "Door to Door." *He also wears that helmet in "Planet Jackers" when he's looking at the sky while on the hill with GIR. *When Zim says that a human has spotted them, GIR brings up how Dib's seen them before, and that he knows where they live, one of the few instances where GIR shows some clarity. It's made even more ironic by the fact that his stupidity plays a large part in the climax. *Zim ultimately brushed the comment off as he knew that Dib had no credibility among humans and so their cover was safe from him at least but knew other humans could possibly be believed which explains why he believed "this was serious" which was technically proven right as Shnooky threatened to expose him. Changes and Cuts *Tommy Pickles, from Nickelodeon's show Rugrats, was originally planned to be one of the alien babies and his original actress E.G. Daily was supposed to reprise her role from the series, but Nickelodeon didn't approve of the idea at the time due to copyright infringement issues. However, Shnooky still seems to resemble Tommy as mentioned before. *The start of the episode was originally supposed to have Zim and GIR buy their snacks at the start and then have them fly into a billboard. This scene was cut for time constraints. Things You Might Have Missed *There is a picture of a vampire from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac on the wall when Zim enters the woman's house, disguised as a baby inspector. *At the end of the episode when Zim throws Shnooky through a window, what appears to be Minimoose is seen on the mobile, even though Minimoose didn't actually appear until Season 2. Inconsistencies and Animation Errors *When GIR attempts to reason with the baby and is knocked down by Zim, his eyes are colored green. *When Zim is in the blue light, he has no reflections. *Considering that the babies that were "freed" were never brought back to Earth, it cam be implied that they either never grew up, were accepted by the Nhar-Gh'ok as their own or worse case scenario maybe even perished as the force that was used to get them onto the mother ship might have been too strong for them. See also *Plague of Babies (Transcript) *Plague of Babies/Screenshots References *http://www.tv.com/invader-zim/plague-of-babies/episode/97846/summary.html es:Plaga de bebés Category:Season 1 Category:Episodes Category:Altered Episodes Category:Screenshots